We the People; you the Liar

The combination was electrifying. On the screen, a leader was obviously being isolated from his people; endless commentaries on the security measures of the event had been broadcast during the preceding hours. “It is the last time he will walk among the people as a President,” an anchor had oddly announced. Yet, he was separated from the people by a moving wall of heavy armored vehicles. The edition played odd tricks; looking at President Obama walking along Pennsylvania Avenue, I could listen to excerpts from his inaugural address. “We the People,” he kept saying, quoting the first words of the USA Constitution. The effect was grotesque.

Statistics vs. refutal

Statistics are easily manipulated; most tricks hide behind the definitions of the groups being sampled as I recently analyzed in Instead of Statistics, Israel published Racistics. Moreover, on certain topics, one must compromise on the sampling of events. Even if I had a sidekick, I wouldn’t be able to analyze all the actions of the USA government. The result would be an analysis based on partial events and thus of little weight. Thus, refuting Obama’s inaugural address using statistics is a too ambitious project for this humble writer. Proving that Obama was wrong was easier; in fact, he was lying to “We the People.”

Excuse me, Mr. President, but . . .

Excuse me, Mr. President, but in your speech you said “We the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security.” Your deep voice was so impressive that it almost distracted me from your words. I am unworthy of attempting to understand your wisdom, but I believe that your definition includes the right of any American citizen not to be killed by his government. Yet, there is at least one case in which a third-generation American was assassinated by your direct order without having been given even the opportunity to defend himself in a court! I understand that the following question of mine is unfair, but, Honorable Mr. President, was your father American?

I was so shocked by your obvious lie—who would believe that a democratic president would lie to his people—that I almost missed another odd point in your speech. “We the people still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war. Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage,” you said, and I was confused for a second. Two lies in one breath are a bit too much for my feeble mind. “Unmatched in . . . courage” you said. Please, Mr. President, explain to us lesser humans how much courage is needed for attacking with a drone people armed with sticks and stones? For the sake of clarifying the second lie, let me remind the world that you are the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize 2009. Honorable Peacemaker, do you realize that your violent fiefdom had led more than 500 operations and battles in its short existence? You speak of peace while competing with Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin, for the first place in a list that I prefer not to name.

I apologize, Mr. president, but your words tired me; instead of moving forward in your speech, let me return to its beginning. You quoted an old text, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Yet, you lead one of the most unequal nations on earth. You lead a country with unprecedented gaps among its citizens. You lead a country where one’s capabilities to succeed is determined in great part by irrelevant parameters of ethnicity, color and gender. You speak of liberty with a capital “L”, yet you lead an unprecedented surveillance state that dwarfs anything imagined by George Orwell and violates the most basic human rights without ever having been given the right to do that by the people. Let’s stop this analysis; your speech was a lie from beginning to end.

Honorable Mr. President, “we the people” of the world cannot defend ourselves from your weapons of mass destruction and from your indifference to the value of Life. Come and crucify us. Come and get richer at our expense. Come and torture us for the sake of your sadistic pleasures. However, at least allow us a last wish: don’t lie to us.